3 Steps to Build A Full-Time Wedding Photography Business

The Top Three Keys for Building a Successful Business

If you want to know the basic tips to start a wedding photography business, and grow that business, you need these three tips!

Wedding photography is such a niche industry. But you can grow a successful business if you focus on some key areas.

In this video tutorial, Taylor Jackson talks about the three steps he took to build his full-time career as a wedding photographer and building his own business.

How to Grow A Wedding Photography Business

If you follow these steps, you will be well on your way to building your own business!

Start a Wedding Photography Business Step #1: The Basics

Obviously to have full-time career and business as a photographer in any specialty, you must have basic photography knowledge, skills and gear.

Gear is important but you don’t need the most expensive or new stuff out there. Any camera from 2017 and newer will have all of the settings and image qualities that will start you out strong.

Just start out shooting couples to get your feet wet for wedding photography. It’s awkward at first but the more you practice with real couples, the easier it will feel. 

Another skill for wedding photography specifically is to know how to handle large families and diffuse chaotic moments while trying to shoot photography at a wedding.

Sometimes it is helpful to have the couple give you a list of all the family shots they want before the day and have someone call out names to get through these sessions efficiently. 

These are all skills you can get used to by booking couples and families to practice and practice.  

Start a Wedding Photography Business Step #2: Awareness

Getting your photography business out into the market and known is one of the hardest parts of the business. 

The best way to get couples to book with you the quickest is to have them see you in a few different places.

This could be heard about you from a friend, then a Facebook ad, then someone’s wedding photos they post on Instagram.

Three touchpoints will get you more awareness in the market.

You can start by making sure you have a killer website. Then a great storefront or easy to navigate e-booking platform.

Websites are simple to create nowadays with many hosting and design options. There is no excuse for not having a website. Easily scale up your business by investing in having a good website built for you.  

Focus on being involved in the wedding community, becoming a preferred vendor with local brands, getting on vendor lists so your brand is suggested, and paid ads.

Focus in on one at a time, and use paid ads just in the beginning to help you get leads as long term there are better marketing options.. 

Start a Wedding Photography Business Step #3: Sales

You have done the work of having basic skills and gear. You know that you have three touchpoints where potential clients will see you and your brand. So how do you make the sales?

The more indicators of credibility you have online the more likely you are to get real leads that become paid clients.

This can be through showing a great portfolio, including client testimonies, and even transparent pricing publicly on your website. 

That way, the enquiries you get are more likely to be ready to book than string you along for information. 

This might not be right for you but the inquiries you get vs booked clients might be higher. 

Offering video can be another way to get better sales. People prefer one company doing both photos and video.

A lot of the time people would prefer one company to take care of both than trying to hire a photographer and another company for videography. 

A Good Wedding photography business is not an impossible thing to Build if you work at it

Following some simple steps, outsourcing some of the tools, and sticking with it will get you the wedding photography business you’re trying to build.

You just need to have those basic skills and figure out how to best reach the clients you want to book. Then repeat!

Next, improve your photography skills with this comprehensive photography guide!

Which of the steps to build a wedding photography business will you apply THIS WEEK?

Comment below!